Usurpers
by Jet556
Summary: From the family of the Pretender to the Fire Nation Throne have come four usurpers. These are their stories.
1. Sozin

**Welcome, everyone. Feeling that it is time I did a good successor to "Reign Predictions" I have decided to write this story, keeping the family of the Pretender to the Fire Nation Throne as the central characters. Just as RP centered around predictions from the Pretender to the Throne of how long a Fire Lord's reign will be, this will center around pretenders who were would-be usurpers. Enjoy and review.**

**Sozin**

The House of Mongkut was a noble military family but they had not always been so. Indeed they had not always been from the Fire Nation having originally been from the Earth Kingdom and had come to the Fire Nation during the time of Chin the Conqueror. With red hair the family looked very different and was sometimes considered outsiders amongst the Fire Nation nobility. Members often had a Fire Nation name and a name that marked them as a member of their tribe.

Khabul was the son of Mongkut, first Pretender to the Fire Nation Throne and known also by the Tribe Name of "Khabul." He was one of the few members of his family to forego a Fire Nation Name. He was sixty-two years old, twenty years younger than Sozin and while the two were practically the same person there was one thing that the two disagreed upon: war.

Khabul had little reason to like war. He may have come from a noble military family but that did not mean he liked it and had a preference for preventing it. As for the expansionist aim of the war, Khabul could only see a future where if the war was a success that the Fire Nation would eventually become so big that it would be divided by two and plunged into civil war. Although he would be unfairly remembered as "the Usurper" by the court chroniclers, his challenging of Sozin for the throne was based on one objective: to prevent war.

Sozin and Khabul had a mutual respect for one another, something that the court chroniclers would omit. When the time for their Agni Kai came, the two swore that should the other die they would erect a great statue in honor of them.

Fire Lord Khabul. It would have been an interesting thought. It would have been interesting to know how history would have changed then: the Air Nomads never would have been wiped out, the waterbenders of the Southern Water Tribe never would have been reduced to one, the Siege of Ba Sing Se never would have happened. If only.

Sozin spared Khabul and he resigned from his position as Pretender to the Throne. For the remainder of his life Khaus wrote chronicles of the war during his lifetime and with every one he wrote he condemned it.

**Note**

When I made a decision for the family to be redheaded I had cited Genghis Khan having been a redhead. At the time it meant little other than a justification for redheads in a fantasy world based primarily on Asian cultures. I know the Water Tribes are the exclusion but I didn't want to use that as a justification to have these people that are basically Irish, Danish, whatever redheaded European people you can name. Thus I ultimately looked to Ramses II who comes from Egypt, which is a part of both Africa and Asia. Ramses was a redhead and is believed to have come from a prominent family of redheads and recent scholarship believes his family to have been descended from immigrants, Egypt having been a crossroads and melting pit since time immemorial, so I used that idea for the House of Mongkut and with the me having cited Genghis Khan as a redhead I decided that the people the House of Mongkut is derived from should be Mongolian based. In the Earth Kingdom a majority of it is Chinese based but then we have Kyoshi Island and that is Japanese based location so I feel the Mongol inspired people for the House of Mongkut works. I am aware there are Mongolian influences in the Avatar universe but I am taking some liberty here and I am uncertain how to relate the House of Mongkut to Mongke who is named after the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, I might make him a disowned member of the family to acknowledge both Mongke and the "Tribe Names" being Mongolian in origin or I might not.


	2. Azulon

**Welcome back, everyone. Enjoy and review.**

**Azulon**

Azulon and Meiji, the Pretender to the Throne for the former's first forty-four years of rule, had never seen eye to eye. Although they had fought on the same side, Meiji had a tendency to disregard Azulon's orders.

"Meiji, you will take the left side."

"Keep you the left side. I shall fight on the right side."

"Why do you cross me so?"

"I do not cross you but I will do so."

Despite Meiji's disregarding of the Fire Lord's orders, they never knew defeat so Azulon saw no real reason to punish him.

It was the thirty-sixth year of Azulon's reign. Meiji had been writing in his study when word broke out that a fire had begun in the capital. The fire had begun in shops where flammable goods were stored and the night had been windy, causing the flames to spread rapidly. The fire claimed three districts of the capital, one of which was the home of the House of Mongkut.

The next day, Meiji stood before Azulon and said: "This was no accident, someone started this fire with the intention to kill you."

"Yes…" Azulon said. "I know. I have been encouraging your son Ambaghai to usurp and it would seem he finally took his chance, a bit much I admit but I am quite impressed by the lengths he went to."

"You are as much responsible for this as he is."

"Watch your tongue, immigrant spawn!"

Meiji took a breath before asking: "Why would you encourage Ambaghai to do such a thing?"

"I was bored, it amused me and he always had a desire for the throne but he only lacked the heart to take it." Azulon answered.

Eyes narrowed, Meiji then asked: "Is being an authoritarian autocrat hated by his own nation not good enough for you that you now seek to drag my son's name through the dirt?"

"Meiji, Ambaghai's name is perfectly fine. We have agreed to take the opportunity to blame some common factional adversaries." Azulon chuckled as he dug his nails into the chair he was sitting in. "They are to be beheaded tomorrow. I do look forward to Ambaghai's next attempt, I wonder what he shall try next."

Meiji returned to his home and found Ambaghai in his room, designing a boat that was to fall apart once far enough out at sea. He then took notice of the knife on Ambaghai's desk.

Ambaghai looked over his shoulder and said: "Oh, it is you. How are you, father?" He then returned to his work. Meiji did not answer, merely walking over to the desk. "I heard that Fire Lord Azulon plans to expand the palace now that room has been made by the fire."

Meiji picked up the knife. There was a ruby in the pommel. "A new knife?"

"Yeah, you like it? It is a gift from Fire Lord Azulon. Him and I have become very close." Ambaghai's eyes then widened as he felt something sharp enter his back.

The last words he heard were his father saying: "Oh, yes, I like it very much."

Ambaghai was not cremated rather his body was hurled into a ditch and left there on his father's orders. Meiji then proceeded to expel Ambaghai's wife Si and their son Hotula from his estate while naming his second son Yesugei as his heir.


End file.
